Liquidate entire portfolio until virus is over?

chucknorris

NorthernJoe said:

chucknorris said:

Reaper said:

Here's my opinion for what it's worth...

1) I think the scare is overdone. Season flu kills an average of 17,000 in the UK every year but doesn't cause this level of panic. Both diseases are of most risk to those who are old or have existing conditions, but unlike the flu Coravid-19 does not seem seem to be particularly dangerous to children. BUT...

2) Despite what I said above I think the reaction of people and governments limiting movement, shutting down places of work and cancelling events means it will have a significant effect on businesses and therefore stock market.

Taking those 2 facts together I don't plan to sell anything but will wait until I feel the disease is approaching its peak them buy whatever I can with whatever spare cash I can get my hand on. That's because demand has not gone away. It's only supply that is being affected so I am expecting a rapid bounce back to levels not much short of where they were.

I agree with you, but I have also (I think) have prepared for a much worse scenario. By having money available for substantial future equity investment if the market really crashes'

I disagree. The government has been treading carefully to try and prepare people for the inevitable, try not to cause panic and yet plan behind the scenes. As a result, in my view, as someone involved in that planning, the risks have been significantly underplayed in public. 

I'm not so much agreeing with his interpretation of the virus, who knows what will happen, I am agreeing with his conclusion that it is best not to sell his investments.

2010

Markets don`t rise in a straight line.
They also don`t fall in a straight line.
But it`s pretty obvious the way things are looking at the moment, it`s a downward trend.
Anyone brave enough should sell (if they can) a percentage of their portofolio on the next rally, sit on the cash and wait.
Say what you like, but the indices will be llower later than they are now.
Ftse100 6,462, Dow 25,864 March 6th 2020

Rookie13

In one year`s time this virus will have run its course and it will be old news. 

masonic

2010 said:

Markets don`t rise in a straight line.
They also don`t fall in a straight line.
But it`s pretty obvious the way things are looking at the moment, it`s a downward trend.
Anyone brave enough should sell (if they can) a percentage of their portofolio on the next rally, sit on the cash and wait.
Say what you like, but the indices will be llower later than they are now.
Ftse100 6,462, Dow 25,864 March 6th 2020

Happy to try this experiment with a virtual holding in VWRL. I'll note the price I "sell" on the next rally and wait for your signal to buy it back.

coastline

bostonerimus said:

coastline said:

kinger101 said:

coastline said:

Worth noting that Fridays close in USA was similar to last Friday. There was a massive rally in the last hour which can be seen in the link below. If you look at the tails on the candles you can see yesterdays low was higher than last week. I've posted before this is how bottoms are formed but as we know a crash is totally different. So far a correction and that's all it is and of course now it depends on the daily news stories.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0qvWPLNtxIY/XmK8zVQVenI/AAAAAAAB1Fc/DQ-UrZQLe9Ix-Y_wTpPKmrMN6lXwpaqAACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/spdaily5+mar6.png
 

But what does that mean for the average Pisces?  

Over the last week we have a low of 2855 on the chart and a higher low this Friday suggesting a bottom may be forming ? We have a glimmer of hope.

Watch the video.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/76886031#Comment_76886031

What a load of ****. Anyone who name drops Fibonacci and the Golden Ratio in connection with a stock chart is being completely irrational IMO. Rather than watching that video use your time more productively and find out exactly why the Golden Ratio is the most irrational of numbers.

I haven't posted the video to bombard readers with TA. Golden Ratio, Fibonacci etc. I'm not bothered about that. The point is we've had dramatic daily falls of 3% and over and the video shows how similar events in recent years have played out. In most cases the market has stabilised at some level but volatility remained for a month or two. Who knows what will happen but there's nothing wrong with looking back at history. So at this present moment we have 2855 on the SP 500 as the lowest in this correction. It was tested on Friday but there was a reversal in the last hour and the market regained most of the daily falls. We have a line in the sand 2855. A glimmer of hope for those who are concerned about crashes etc. Next week well who knows ?

These situations appear to test the nerve of posters and DIY investors and it makes you think about tolerance of risk. You never know until you are hit with a 20% plus correction . There wouldn't be threads appearing on the various forums if posters were really that calm about it. Hopefully everything works out fine by the summer for all concerned. 

BTW Bustednoseonthebus I do use my time productively I've had a nice few days in the garden preparing for the Spring and coming Summer. 

John_

chucknorris said:

EdGasketTheSecond said:

How will you assess when we have 'really crashed' though? What would be your criteria and how would you know it wasn't a bull trap?

Well as most of my additional funds are not available for over 2 years, it would be a fairly long bull trap

Do you know that phrases like “bull trap” are simply not used in professional trading? They are used by technical analysts, who are no better than astrologers, and pundits.

I’ve traded for over twenty years now as my job, and have not once heard anyone say “bull trap” ever.

John_

2010 said:

Markets don`t rise in a straight line.
They also don`t fall in a straight line.
But it`s pretty obvious the way things are looking at the moment, it`s a downward trend.
Anyone brave enough should sell (if they can) a percentage of their portofolio on the next rally, sit on the cash and wait.
Say what you like, but the indices will be llower later than they are now.
Ftse100 6,462, Dow 25,864 March 6th 2020

Given your belief that you can tell the future direction of stocks, what is your risk-adjusted out performance of your indices over the last few decades?

Also, your prediction makes no sense, you could say at virtually any point in time that indices will be lower in the future and be right nearly every time.

Maybe you think my ou are being clever here, but without a track record it’s worthless, and even with a track record, you need to put a timescale on it to have any meaning, or will you call your prediction a success if we open a single point down tomorrow then rally strongly through the rest of the year?

Edited to add, I can see that pretty much every time you post about stocks that you believe that they are imminently going to fall from where they are, and yet you personally seem not to have investments as such, but rather are scratching around with a bit of money in savings accounts. What value do you think you are adding to any conversation by just always saying this sort of thing?

Are you just hoping to look clever the odd time you get it right?

BrockStoker

Algorithms are entirely predictable by definition. Stock markets aren't. Technical analysis is woo.  If there were any rules for predicting market behavior, the investment banks would have fired their analysts decades ago and replaced them with fairly simple machine learning tools, rather than relying on the margin from trades.  

I've never based any investment decisions on technical analysis. All I'm saying is that I think the scenario appears to be quite likely, however the author of the article came to the conclusion.

BrockStoker

So what are you going to do? I’m going to do nothing.

All I'm doing is making sure I have cash available if there is a drop in the markets. As others have said - you get more for your money if you buy after a significant fall.

kinger101

coastline said:

Who knows what will happen but there's nothing wrong with looking back at history. 

Nobody knows what will happen.  There's nothing wrong with looking back at history, proving it's done with a degree of rigour, and an understanding that it only explains the past.  A cFireSim analysis won't tell me how well a retirement pot will do in the future under various scenarios.  I might just make reasonable assumptions that one with a 99% historical success rate is better than one with a 75% historical success.  But as even the 99% success rate would have me dying anything between a pauper and a multi-millionaire on the historical data, it's of very poor value in assessing future performance.  And that's with a dataset with a large n.  You're making bold claims about the predictive value of less than 1 hour's trading on a single index using a very small n.  You are the guy in the pub who knows when the fruit machine will pay out because the lights are flashing in the right sequence.   Not understanding it's human nature to see patterns in the noise like faces in the clouds.